
FT MEPDE 
GenCol 1 


PC-MACFARLANE 



y; 





Pass 

Book C- 

Gopight 1^? 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


* 


\ 




w 



-vl 










# 



% 

✓ 










* 





*• 


• >> 




* <- 


V - ■ 

4 

« 



« 

4 




t 

'' ■ri'" ,. 




*» 


r 


< « < 
W 







I 


V 


« 




i 





I 



p 

« 







$ 


$ 


$ 


I 



-n 

N 


t 


4 


\ 



» • , 

< 



« 


t 



i 




« 



» 



f 




} \ 


$ ' * 


» 



^ ' 





» # 



9 



I 




I 


/ 


.1 


* 


% 






• % 



f 



( 


% 


« 


I 


r* 

I 

» » 



» p 


# 

4 


V n. 


s- > ^ 




% 


> 1 


i 



< 




-^ 4 - 


*' / . 











» 


* • V 

H 

f 







* 





.s' 

4 - J 


» 


I* >. 













Sv-V' 

7- 






* f 










iVO' 


' '* 






' I • I 




W: 


W!f! 




Vr 


.xo 




• . ^ • 'V-V*'* " .t-, - • \{7^ 

vv ' .:..i-,i ' 

•I'; .''X ■'■ ' ; . "■'' :‘7' ' 




* V. 


't 


PI 




iXi# 


'/f. 


4*j 


i 


vr. I' 


V 








I . I 




>Vi 


■A 


'I ' • 




^ry/. 




rn' 


Ur/ 










■A ^.'. 


il-. 


' :v / 






» > • • 


Dl-'i?, 

k'% 


• , / 


,<{■- 




f.T 




* ).i 




‘'.5j 


&{ 


f; 


cv 


■ijy 


JuL 


». ; 




AV.- > 


'XV- 


% 


I ■ •. 




•i ' 


■A 


\* 




A' t\) 


• 1 ^ 






U^'-.Xl 


ti 


.’> •ijo 




m. 


w 


' / ♦ 






■> < 




iik 




,v' 


/.'’■■'I 


j •> 


' I 


,».■ -’K. ■' '' 

: '^^ « . . . • . 




i 


M 










tOi 


'. f'f 


ki '1 


' • '• '*1 ‘ \ 

; V ■ • mmtsi 

.j.vr'k" 


V\<v. 


N.4V 




tea? 




1"? 






^'A ■ .j' 


\vx 


ri'* 


rM I 


‘.M 


I %3 


;•* 


vS' 




v’< 


'K*'' I • ' V ■ 
V.' / 


rV 






Wmifi 








'.V 




>i:^ 


r 


't 




v> - 


t 


'♦MW: 




.« V 


r;.v 


'.* • 


A<t 


i' 


I: 




1.^ 


I L* 






5; ..^11 


L*.- 




to 








f. i- 


fcV 








'tv 


y_ir 


* ^ 


■ I 


Na.i‘ 


5(V' 


a 






■fM 






V j 


y ' 


Hi! 


A 'I , ,,' ■ ; '■ 

VA'lt.i'' •■•; '.’M, .,-• 

«l 4 :y‘ -■■ 


•i A 


• *3 


C>U 


{i> A 


.ft' 


r>.irp • • I • 




X y.<) 


4’^ 


'im' 


» y 


I •/ 






'ji'; 




Ah 


;IV,' 


M 




*y i 


m 






it A 






M 






A.f 


S"Ji 


II '1 




'I . 


1 1 1 


!• 


V^M 


[s; 




M n 


UV 


>*: « « 


ilvV vv^^ 


S^‘ 


•T ». 






f.>; 








'M 





rk.-’ 


» !• 


'h"s 


.« 


'IV 








'ik’i 








> »» 


I 


m 




Wi 


L f 




k'i'. 


•m 


•V 


ft MJ 


'Jl’* 


.^l»l 


t\ 


LS--> 


fiw 


'1,1 


-p] 


l'*f 










KHi' 




o>'. ;*i 




aV»i 


:V 


»/' I. 


»*v\’ 




7 > .rifctf A.* 


V < 


• iw 


Wl 


Iv- 


-V< 





















New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 






And now, noble Marcus, I have that to write unto you 
which will make those patrician eyes of thine grow big 
with admiration. Marcus, this day I have seen a man. 
Write it on thy tablets, Sergius hath seen a man." And 
to thyself admit that though thou hast campaigned in 
Gaul and in Britain and hast chased the Scyths over 
the unnamed reaches beyond the northern sea, and hast 
thyself been chased by that fiety group of Bactrians that 
were once near to taking your life and mine on our 
most luckless campaign beyond the Assyrian River 
— admit it — thou hast never yet seen a man ; for I 
swear by every god in the calendar there never was but 
one, and an hour ago I saw him die. 

And such a place to look for a man ! True, these 
Jews can breed a warrior, as those who fought the Mac- 
cabees would swear, but no soldier this man. A teacher, 
Marcus. Think of it ! A preacher and wonder-worker 
who used not to play at arms, but at words — the guest of 





long-robed Pharisees at dinner, the entertainer of any 
wayside crowd with barbaric Hebrew syllogisms — a sort 
of religious Esculapius who healed the sick. Some aver, 
too, that even he raised the dead. If that be true, he 
has now a proper task to raise himself, for it is but a mo- 
ment since I clamped him in a rock-hewn crypt, with the 
seal of Csesar on the door. 

The seal of Csesar ! I bow in reverence for our great 
Caesar, our divine Tiberius. But, what folly ! To put 
the seal of Caesar on a tomb. I tell you I saw the blue 
seal of death clamp this one’s lips, and do I not know 
that seal ? Have I not seen it frame itself upon a hun- 
dred — upon a thousand — upon unnumbered men ? 
Upon women that the sword of the ravisher cut down ; 
upon children that starved when the invading armies had 
swept the country like a fire, and famine and fatigue had 
dried the mother’s breasts ? I have seen it in every stage 
of wasting back to nature that ensues until the separate 
grinning bones of hideous death are sport for dogs or 
habitats for worms, and I say again, what folly ! What 
seal of Emperor or Gods is half so strong to keep a man 
entombed as that unturning process of the Universe that 
grinds life into being with pain and sorrow and grinds it 
out again at the last with sorrow and pain. Caesar’s seal 
to keep the dead dead ! 

But, even while I write these words and pause to scoff 
at man’s mischance of nature, yet I tell you that if there 
be ever a time when Nature would rue her work upon the 
frame of a human being, when rocks and hills and trees 
and birds and glistening seas and whispering winds and 
booming thunders, and all the vast impeopled constitu- 
tion of the universe would, with one voice, cry out 


** Come back, come back, oh, man ! come back ! and 
live thy life and work thy mortal will again upon us and 
among us,” it would be for this man Jesus. 

For, by the way, it is of him, Jesus the Nazarene, that 
I write. You know of him before from our long habit 
to set down each to the other the curious that we see and 
hear. As once I wrote you of the rumours that came to 
me, I thought him half a charlatan and all a fool. 

To begin with, the priests like him not. He had a 
mind that cut like a blade, a tongue that blistered when 
it struck a rogue. He had more keenness to discern a 
rascal than any I have ever known and so the priests like 
him not. Blit, ye gods ! the man was brave. He 
feared nor heaven, nor earth, nor hell, and when he 
loosed himself upon these priestly vultures, he made 
their feathers curl. I warrant you, with mere words, he 
singed them as a cook a fowl. Now, some loose word of 
his stirred up the charge that he would be a king like 
Caesar, and these venomous priests came to Pilate with it. 
You know our worthy Governor, who, if he should read 
this line, would love me even less than he does, which, 
God wot, is little enough. Pilate would sell the blood in 
the veins of his Emperor at so much a measure, if 
thereby he might pacify the leaders of the people while 
he squeezed the milky fatness out of the land into his 
own coffers. So from Pilate, an order of arrest was easy 
as a prescription for sore eyes from a doctor. Those 
hulking cowards that call themselves the Temple Police 
were to make the arrest, but I am detailed with a guard 
to police the police. 

It was done at night and quietly, not to say decently. 
There were two reasons for this. One was that these 





sneaky priests could never get up the courage to begin 
the enterprise in the' daytime ; and the other was that 
Pilate is a foxy old crow and knew as well as the Jews 
that to take the Nazarene at noon time in the heydey of 
his popularity with the gaping, adoring crowd around, 
would be to precipitate a riot and not Vulcan himself 
knows where a tumult among these Jews would stop. So, 
at night, we jostled down the dry ravine called Kedron 
and up the rough and tangled sides of the mountain 
called Olivet. Here, amid the shadowy recesses that 
hide themselves beneath the tangle of olive trees that 
cover a part of the hill it was his wont to retire at night. 
To the place where, all alone, he kept his tryst with the 
Hebrew god, Jehovah, whose representative he claimed to 
be, a hound called Judas, one of his own, guided us. It 
may have been the clank of sword upon armour, it may 
have been the grinding of a grieve upon a rock that re- 
vealed our presence — for we went quietly enough, you 
must be assured, for, of all the cowards in whose breasts 
fear ever grew, commend me to this sneaking bunch of 
Temple Priests. Whatever it was, the party heard our 
coming. And I, who, though in the rear, have perhaps an 
ear for such things, caught the quiet, masterful tones of a 
commander of men speaking to his followers. It was a 
little nook, dark as the Cave of Death itself; but sud- 
denly we all stopped, hushed with expectancy. Just 
ahead of us in the shadow were the low murmuring tones 
that did not come from our own people. Then a trem- 
bling priest upheld high his torch before him and I saw 
a vision. A huddled, startled group of men for back- 
ground and before them a figure — no, not a figure, — a 
face ; yet the poise of the head, the commanding dignity 



of the features, the absolute mastery of the soul that 
stood out, and the visage upon which my eye rested, told 
me that there was a figure there. No ghost this. The 
face I could not describe since every feature seemed so 
complete that they blended into the one perfect character 
of a man. Forehead and eyes and mouth, I saw, and 
wavy hair flung back and beard enough, with heavy 
brows, but no feature stood out — all was subject unto the 
character, unto the face as a whole, unto the soul of the 
man who himself looked, subject unto nothing. My 
mind ran back through all the kingly souled men I have 
seen. Onones, the Parthian ; Leontes, the Thracian, and 
that great German Chief, whom we saw fall in the little 
skirmish beyond the Danube. These three men walked 
through my imagination to-day with the stately majesty 
of gods. Not Zeus, himself, could be more kingly than 
they, yet there in the shadow, with only the flickering 
light from the torch upon his face, plus some strange 
luminous glow that seemed to be upon his hair and for 
which I could not account, was one who somehow flung 
these other men out of memory. There he stood in the 
shadow, and yet his face was light, lighter, I swear, 
than the combined rays of all the feeble flickering torches 
the cowardly priests held above him. “ Whom do you 
seek ? ” he asked in that calm voice of his that seemed to 
me to have the strength of the Universe in its tone and 
timbre ; and, so help me Jove ! if the whole doddering 
bunch that were so keen to take him did not stand there 
with chattering teeth and husking, inarticulate words in 
their throats. I listened till I felt a chill go shivering 
through the group and then, from my place in the rear, in 
that disgust for the cowards which my heart felt, I an- 



swered respectfully, *‘We seek Jesus, the Nazarene.” 
He took a step forward further into the circle of the lights 
that flickered more each minute from the cowardly trem- 
bling of those who held them, and said in that same voice 
of his, which reminded me now of the far-off murmur of a 
cataract: ‘‘I am he.” 

When the man uttered these words, that group of hire- 
lings wilted to the earth in rows as if cut down by some 
giant sickle. Am I a coward ? No, you know that I 
am not ; but when he had finished speaking, I was on 
my knees. I said I was not a coward. These others 
fell before his glance because his eye swept them as a 
scorching fire, because they were arrant cowards. I fell 
upon my knees in admiration of the man. But while I 
looked, the kingliness seemed to retire. That self-asser- 
tion of a high-born majesty went back a little into the 
face of him. Something as though a man could do, yet 
would not do what he could. Once, I am told, when a 
woman pressed upon him in a throng for healing and 
touched the hem of his garment, he said, “ My power 
goeth out from me.” Now, it was as though his power 
went back into him from without. Even the cowards 
felt the change. And that sneaking hang-dog of a Judas 
disentangled himself from the crouching group and went 
forward, saying, “Master, I salute thee,” and kissed 
him on the brow. With that the curs became very 
brave. They swarmed around him like jackals and be- 
gan to hustle him — such treatment as I permit not to 
any prisoner in my charge ; but before I could act, a 
great raw-boned giant of a Galilean had swung a rusty 
fish knife that he plucked from out his tunic so hard at 
Malchus, the cowardly leader of the cowardly pack, as to 


le Crucifixion 


11 


hew off an ear. For a moment, the prisoner became a 
king again. With one swift word, he rebuked the Gali- 
lean and forbade him to use his sword. His followers 
looked in amazement at this. Terror seized them. 
Since their Master forbade them to be brave, they, too, 
became cowards and disappeared in the darkness in a 
panic of fright. At the same moment, Jesus, himself, 
with a quick motion of the hand, had touched the ear 
of Malchus, and I, who was pressing forward at the mo- 
ment, declare to you in all solemnity, Marcus, my friend 
and brother, that the wound upon the head of Malchus 
disappeared as though it had never been there. 

Conquering my amazement, I brought about order, 
and formed the party for the march back to the Temple, 
leaving the priestly police in immediate charge as were 
my orders from Pilate. 

I had thought that the dogs would lead him to the 
Temple where their public trials are held, but, no. 
After we had reached the city, they go trailing off to the 
house of that old he-wolf Annas, whose son-in-law Caia- 
phas is High Priest. Annas strutted like an ostrich, his 
beady old eyes sparkling with a serpentine light. The 
Nazarene’s hands were bound behind his back but he 
stood beautifully erect and bore himself nobly, answer- 
ing the yappings of the sanctimonious cur with boldness 
and dignity. One of the jackals presumed to strike him 
in the face, rebuking him for his answer to Annas. 
Then, you should have seen the Nazarene. The light 
came into his eyes; the colour into his cheeks and I 
could have sworn he was no less than a king as the 
mantling blush of outraged dignity mounted his tem- 
ples. He fixed those orbs that seemed to blaze upon the 


man and said: **If I have spoken falsely, testify to it; 
but if truly, why do you strike me ? ” The man slunk 
from before him and Annas, seeing he could make noth- 
ing of him, bound him over to Caiaphas, his dear, sweet 
son-in-law, a hungrier wolf than old Annas even, if hun- 
grier there be. This meeting at the house of Caiaphas 
was more public. The rumour that the prophet was in 
custody had spread like wildfire through the city and 
many of the Scribes and Pharisees and elders among the 
people were present. I could not make sense out of it 
myself, for such things are irksome to me, but I could 
see that they were all lying like Greek traders, and that 
with all their lying, he came squarely off triumphant. I 
wish, Marcus, you could have seen him, wearing a fine 
sort of dignity that was almost contempt and yet not 
quite, for in his face was more a look of patience and 
forbearance. You know our Roman contempt for weak- 
ness ; and sometimes we regard forbearance as weakness, 
but I swear to you, this man was patient and stronger 
than a rock at the same time. I am not given to super- 
stition. I have seen the inside of every priestly game 
that ever religious rascal has played, and my good sword 
has searched the heart of a trickster or two of them, but 
yet I grew to believe in this man as I looked at him. 
** Whatever else,” said I to myself, “ the man is no mere 
magician.” I remembered what happened in the garden 
on the mountain and, by Zeus, I think he had it in his 
power to strike every accusing eye blind and every lying 
tongue dumb and yet he bided his time till the examina- 
tion was almost concluded, when Caiaphas let fly some 
kind of question that stirred him deeply, and quick as a 
flash he answered something about the Son of Man and 


the clouds of glory. I did not catch it, perhaps, nor 
guess its significance, but the effect was like tossing a 
hornet’s nest into the crowd. Those old graybeards got 
up on their toes and howled and uttered such foul 
language in religious phraseology, with clinchings of their 
fists and demonstrations of hatred as I did not think were ^ 
possible. Old Annas, who was urging Caiaphas on, tore 
his tunic from top to bottom and others did likewise. 
The young fellow surrounded himself with such an 
armour of majesty as had its being in the pure essence of 
manhood and in his fine strong innocence, and I looked 
him to stare them all out of countenance and go forth a 
free man. 

But his speech, whatever it was, set them all gnashing 
at him like wolves and they began to cry Death to him, 
death to him.” The mob circled round him, striking 
with clinched fists and spitting upon him. Some 
impudent fellow flung the corner of his own robe 
over his face, thus blindfolding him. Another struck 
him with the open palm and a third said, *<If thou 
be Christ, prophesy who struck thee.” I then shoul- 
dered my way to the centre of the mob. As the dis- 
turbance ceased with my presence, he glanced at me for 
a moment with a grateful eye. His fine nostrils were 
a-quiver and once in a while his long lashes swept his T 
bruised cheeks as he seemed to struggle with emotions 
from which his whole frame trembled. Once again, as I 
stood there beside him, our glances met. In his own 
was a look of recognition that I had done him a favour 
and in mine, I presume, was a look of the surprise I felt 
in my soul. He answered with a word : **They could 
have no power over me, except it were given them of my 




H 



Father.” Who his Father was I do not understand. At 
first I thought it might be some of those graybeards, but 
now I think not. 

However, daylight had come in earnest now and I 
made up my mind that I would take the prisoner before 
Pilate and if so that he were guilty of any offense, he 
could be punished according to law and not harried like 
a quarry by the hounds. However, his enemies reached 
the same decision. It appeared they wanted to put him 
to death and they had to get a decree from Pilate before 
this could be done, so without my interference they 
hustled him away to Pilate’s residence. Only I cau- 
tioned Caiaphas that if they showed the prisoner any 
more violence, I would take him out of their hands. 
Caiaphas and Annas scowled most beautifully at this, 
almost enough to give me warrant for knocking their heads 
together, a pleasure I hope to have some day. 

I looked back as we went down the street towards 
Pilate’s house and thought all Jerusalem was trailing be- 
hind us. The street was full. People were clambering 
over the housetops and from the lower city came that 
distant confused murmuring that I have heard a time or 
two when trouble was breeding and I felt it in my bones 
that some great tragedy was impending. When we 
came to Pilate’s house, there was another halt and more 
wigwagging of white heads. It seemed to-day was 
some kind of High Day with these cattle and they would 
not profane their sacred garments by entering the house 
of a Roman. I settled their palaver in a moment by 
taking the prisoner away from them and marching him 
up on the porch. Pilate knows these Jews well. He 
has conned their prejudices and passions and reads them 



The Crucifixion 


15 


like a book, so he came down from the judgment seat 
where he was waiting and himself stood upon the porch 
beside the Jew. Annas, Caiaphas and the other jan- 
gling rabbis or scribes formed a semicircle in front of 
the porch on the pavement with the crowd pressing on 
behind. I put me a man or two back of them with 
bared spears and yet could scarcely keep the crowd from 
flattening them against the wall. It was amazing to hear 
these accusers change their tune when they got before 
Pilate. All this prating in the houses of Annas and 
Caiaphas was about laws and doctrines and visions and 
such like trash. But, lo ! they came now charging this 
man with being an enemy to Caesar, setting himself up 
to be a king, refusing tribute and such stuff. Pilate in 
the meantime had sent Jesus inside while listening to 
their complaints. Then he strode in to talk to the man 
himself. I wish you could have seen the contrast. 
Pilate, tall, lean, chalky white of face with that fishy 
roving eye that sees naught but the glint of gold and 
those small, spiked ears of his that hear nothing but the 
call of spoil and loot, before the Galilean Prophet. 
Pilate was a full inch taller than he, but the Jew ! ye 
gods ! The soul of him stood out in all its imperial 
majesty. There was a calmness in his poise, a certain 
possessiveness in his bearing that made him, in my eye, 
at least, the grander and nobler for the indignities he 
had just suffered. ‘^Are you king of the Jews?" said 
Pilate, pompously, and waited for his answer. I 
smiled behind my shield to see the tables suddenly 
turned and the prisoner with regal assurance becom- 
ing the inquisitor. ** Who told you to ask me this ? " 
he said. <‘Did it occur to you or did somebody sug- 







le Centurion’s Story 

gest it ? ” Pilate gasped as he answered by asking con- 
temptuously if he were a Jew. Then Jesus told him quite 
plainly that while he was a king, his kingdom was not 
of this world ; that for this reason he had no military 
ambition and no civil interests. It was plain enough to 
Pilate that he was a bright, keen man, though a 
dreamer, with no concern except in some sort of vision- 
ary, religious teaching. For this reason, and because 
Pilate is always glad enough to put a crimp in the 
power of the priests, I saw he was determined to save 
the man alive. Immediately, he went out and told the 
Jews that he found their charges unsubstantiated. With 
that, they broke a new bottle of perfume on his head, 
charging that he had stirred up a riot in Galilee. 
Pilate side-stepped as quick as that wrestler we bet our 
sestercii on in the bout that night in Ostia when last we 
met. He has had a quarrel with Herod for a long time and 
here was a chance to get rid of a disagreeable duty and 
placate Herod at the same time, for Herod happened to 
be in Jerusalem at the birthday celebration of his 
brother, Agrippa, whom he loves as a weasel loves a 
fowl, so off he went, attended by the rabble, to Herod, 
You know what the Herods are like. This Antipas has 
more of the vices and fewer of the virtues of that 
Idumean brood than any other I have known. With 
smug assurance, Herod prepared himself to have sport 
with his Galilean subject, but Jesus stood before him in 
a silence that was dignified but for all that, contemp- 
tuous and full of merited rebuke. Herod tried in vain 
to get a word out of him and then had to have recourse 
to the cheap and vulgar use of his own brutal power, for 
here I could not protect but must needs obey. Under 






Herod’s orders my own soldiers mocked and jeered at 
him. Snatching a purple curtain from the wall, they 
flung it round him like a royal robe and mocked and 
did obeisance after which Herod ordered him back to 
Pilate, still with his purple robe upon him. I thought 
that Pilate would have given in to the people, but I was 
wrong. He was still determined to save him, and 
after argument, sought to compromise by scourging. 

Now, I have bent the lash over many a back and often 
with something of compassion since perhaps there is a 
vein of the woman in me, but by my commission from 
the Emperor, I swear that never did it seem a thing 
more pitiful. With a regal sweep of his arms, the 
Galilean bared his white and glistening flesh to the sting 
of the lash. His flesh was perhaps not more tender than 
another’s, but the godlike beauty of his torso was such 
that it seemed a sin to mar it. They flung again the 
rough and purple robe over his bare and bleeding 
shoulders and from somewhere came a hastily woven 
crown of that little thorn bush you have seen by every 
Syrian roadside. Rude hands jammed it down upon 
his brow. A reed was placed in his hand to signify a 
sceptre and again the soldiers had sport with him ere 
Pilate was satisfied that he had done enough. The 
shouts and jeers and jibes of the soldiers in the court 
could be heard by the mob outside and, like Pilate, I 
would have thought it had pacified them ; instead, it only 
seemed to fire their blood. 

These Jews scoff at our gladiatorial combats. But to 
lash a good man unarmed, helpless, until his tender flesh 
is in ribbons and his full veins are empty is justice with 
them and Divine justice at that. Pilate himself went out 




»tory 


again to the mob and pleaded for the life of his prisoner. 
He did his diplomatic, best— I give the old fox credit for 
that, but the wolves had smelt blood ; they would not be 
denied. 

Pilate made yet one more appeal. Himself he led the 
prisoner out. A pool of blood had formed where he 
stood for the scourging. His feet were wet with it and 
every step he took upon the marble pavement of the 
Judgment Hall was stained crimson. A Roman Judg- 
ment Hall stained with the blood of a man adjudged in- 
nocent. That Roman justice which was once our boast 
may only be laughed at where Pilates are the judges, but 
anyway, there stood Pilate, his face hot and flushed and 
angry. With a little push, he sent the scourged man 
tottering forward to the baluster. The Nazarene recovered 
his pose instantly. There was no droop to his shoulders, 
no pathos in his face and no pallor on his cheeks ; only a 
slight tightening of every line of every feature and a cer- 
tain added rigidity of pose as by sheer force of an un- 
conquerable will, he lifted himself above his pain and 
above his weakness and above that nausea which scourg- 
ing causes and stood there, the finest figure of a man that 
I have ever seen. This, my Marcus, was our hero at his 
greatest moment ; at least his greatest, up to then. 

“Behold the man,” said Pilate. “Know that I find 
no crime in him.” But those bearded old women rent 
their skirts again and filled the air with clouds of dust 
which they tossed high, venting shouts and shrieks of 
disapprobation. “ Away with him,” they cried. “Cru- 
cify him I Crucify him ! His blood be upon us and 
upon our children.” Then I saw the face of Pilate 
change. In his mad impatience he was yielding, but 







the instant came a serving maid from his wife and 
whispered in his ear, what I know not, but a warning I 
am sure, with some touch of superstition in it, for the 
pallor of his cheek was heightened and he straightened 
for a moment as though one had stuck a knife in him. 
Again he turned and pleaded earnestly for the life of the 
man. It was sickening ! 

A Roman and a Procurator pleading with this rabble 
and yet, by Hercules, had I not had more spirit than Pilate 
to let them nag him thus, I myself would have pleaded 
for this noble piece of man flesh ere I had seen it totter- 
ing to the cross. I, too, would have sued upon my knees 
for his life, but the fiends would not be denied. Pilate 
grew more embarrassed. At length he called for water 
and a basin. The Jews clamoured. Jesus looked 
on. The water trickled through the Roman fingers 
and splattered on the pavement, washing out the stain of 
one of the Nazarene’s footsteps. Pilate, too, was seek- 
ing to wash from his heart the stain of giving up to death 
an innocent man for political reasons. Marcus, I am 
not squeamish. I might sell a man or a race of men to 
death to make more secure the power of Rome, but by 
my father’s ancient shrines, I swear that I could not 
have found it in my heart to give this man up to death, 
though the throne of the Caesars themselves would be 
saved from falling thereby. Pilate hath often thanked 
God before for endowing him with few compunctions, 
and now, he doubtless does so again. 

To me, the details of the crucifixion. From out the 
tower, they bring me a cross, ugly with rusty nails, to 
which were hanging rags of dried flesh and were prepar- 
ing it for him. But I said no and made them bring out a 




VXiZr, 






tall new cross. To crucify a Roman citizen were against 
the law of our nation. To crucify this godlike man is to 
outrage the constitution of the universe. Since we must 
lift this man upon a tree, we would lift him high towards 
that God of whom he talked and whose high character 
he most resembled. Those envenomed priests were for 
flinging the joined timbers on his back and the man 
would have borne them, too. He bowed his shoulders 
to their weight. Never a nobler, more submissive vic- 
tim. But I made them stop and put it on a tall Cyre- 
nian, whose massive shoulders could relieve Atlas of his 
weighty burden. My men tossed the cross upon the 
Cyrenian’s shoulders and he bore it scowling mightily 
the while. I trouble not your mind with grisly details. 
The stretching on rude and lifeless wood of the finest figure 
of a man that ever came walking on the seas of life ; the 
crashing of the mallet that forced rude nails through the 
finest fibered, sensitive flesh to the insensate wood ; the 
uplifted cross, the jar and grind and shock as it fell into 
its socket, the wrench and strain of thews — the small 
cataracts of plashing blood that came splattering down 
upon the rocky soil at the instant of elevation ! What 
sighs and tears and tremulous agony of quivering flesh 
passed hour after hour from the morning till afternoon ! 
Only here let me set down that the vengeful malevolence 
of the hateful priests continued to the end. They 
matched his sighs with sneers, they countered his groans 
with jeers and for every line of his own noble gentleness 
and magnificent manhood they matched it with a feature 
of harshest bitterness, revealing that men in bloody anger 
are more heartless than the beasts. It hurt me to the 
core when we lifted this man upon the cross and he knew 





le' XruciSxion 

it and with uplifted eyes he whispered that I might hear, 
‘‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they 
do." 

And, then as I live, there came a darkness over the 
world — a strange unclouded fading of the light of day — 
a sort of shadow as if that the day of our act, our horrid 
deed, placed us beyond the pale of those kindly rays that 
shone for others, but not for us. It was as though we 
had darkened the face of God that day and as the dark- 
ness grew, a hush spread over all — all, until at noon, 
there was a dusk almost of midnight and in the dusk, the 
murmuring fear of the populace, the fierce unshrouded 
reviling of the persecutors and the sighs of him whose 
own life was slowly clouding into darkness. As the 
fever of his pain set in, with my own hands, I offered 
him upon a reed, the customary stupefying draught, but 
Marcus, he would not take it. This man, humiliated, 
tortured, scourged and scorned; his nerves torn with 
pain ; his body racked with fever ; his veins sapped of 
strength — refused. It was the noblest, most heroic act 
mine eyes have ever seen. He must suffer ; therefore, 
he would suffer. As the flesh of him grew weak, I swear 
the soul of him grew stronger. It was the same spirit I 
saw in the garden and in the man before Caiaphas. 
The man suffers because he will, not because he must. 
I do not understand it ; I could not comprehend it, but 
here is the most powerful man that ever lived with capac- 
ity to inspire devotion beyond all others in history, I am 
sure, who might have had at his back by the slightest ex- 
ertion of his personal power and majesty an army that 
would sweep our nation’s capital into the Tiber, yet suf- 
fering and dying at the hands of vengeful men because he 



22 


The Centurion’s Story 


He would not speak a word in 


^ M S. ft I 



would not lift a finger, 
his own behalf. 

Marcus, the figure hanging there in the shadow, twist- 
ing and turning in restless involuntary movements that 
strained and tossed and strained again at the hideous 
nails that held him, searched my soul as never it was 
searched before. 

Marcus, there be reaches in my mind, there be depths 
unexplored in the recesses of my heart, there be heights 
unsealed of my imagination such as never I have dreamed 
on before. This man exposed them to me. Is this man 
god ? I begin to wonder. I had said that he was the 
noblest man I had ever seen ; the manliest, but as I write 
and memory informs my reason again and yet again of 
what I saw this afternoon, I begin to question if we did 
not slay upon the cross the God of all the world. Two 
questions mount themselves like twin consuls in my 
mind, each inquiring insistently of the other, and one 
says, ‘*He must be god, for how could man bear him- 
self as he bore himself to-day, and die as he died?” 
The other says, He must be man, for how could god 
bear what he bore to-day and die as he died?” But 
enough of speculation. You will think I am beside my- 
self — perhaps I am. Perhaps he was. One human 
incident I must relate that shows the fine, high calm and 
utter selflessness of the man. When the darkness was 
thickest, instinctively we all huddled closer to the cross, 
for there appeared once more that strange luminous glow 
upon his hair and features which I had noted in the 
garden. While we clustered round, I heard a sob. The 
figure of a woman had pressed near, supported by a 
young man. She pressed close— I did not restrain her. 



The Crucifixion 


23 



Close, so close that she must have heard the dripping of 
the blood as it trickled upon the stones at the foot of the 
cross and when she sobbed, he turned his luminant eyes 
upon her with a look of infinite compassion. Nodding 
to the young man, he said, ** Mother, behold thy son ! ” 
And to the son he said, Behold thy mother,” and the 
mother turned and the young man folded her to his 
breast, then tenderly he led her away. It was his own 
mother. He had provided for her. His father did not 
appear. Who he is I cannot make out except that in 
his prayer, it seemed as though he called God his father. 
Not a god, nor the gods, but God^ and he spoke to him 
as to that personal constituent force that makes and is 
the universe. Several times the man spoke, muttering 
incoherent things, words I could not comprehend, and 
then at the ninth hour he died. It was sudden, unex- 
pected. I had thought that such a figure might last in 
life for two or three days but, no, he died. I have seen 
men die, as you know, and my accustomed ear caught in 
a moment the sound of his going. I drew close — he 
whispered as to the shadows that bound us all together, 
‘‘ It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commit my 
spirit.” Then he sighed and was dead. In the instant, 
the earth trembled. Not a shock nor yet a thing of 
violence. It seemed as though the earth shuddered and 
then was still. Instantly, the shadows were dissipated. 
The light came. The clear and gentle rays of the sun- 
shine fell upon the thing of the cross. My eyes were 
glued upon it. In death a beautiful composure had come 
to him. The body swung straight down from the arms. 
The head had collapsed upon the chest. The soft beard 
swept the bosom. His long lashes drooped and kissed 



the ashy blue spots forming beneath the eyes above his 
marble cheeks. His features were waxlike in their 
whiteness and delicacy except where blood from the 
wounds upon his forehead had streaked his features over. 
His lips were closed in the last fine compression of noble 
resolution which resisted while he lived and persisted 
while he died. The noble rounding of the head, the 
graceful touch of his hair upon his shoulders — all pro- 
claimed the finest sculpture character has ever chiselled 
in the marble of exquisite flesh. That fine strength was 
gone. The light of the eye had ceased to burn. That 
luminous glow I had noted on his hair and features had 
disappeared. The hair upon his brow moved under the 
impulse of the wind — that was all. Once the breath of 
life had blown through his body and every nerve and 
organ had been responsive to its will, but not now ! 
He had passed calmly out of life into the robing room of 
the universe. 

The man — the noblest man mine eyes have ever seen 
was dead, and after the soldiers had, by my own order, 
searched his very heart with the spear, we placed him in 
the tomb, as complete a marring of a noble being as earth 
had ever seen. Vengeful hatred and cruel weakness had 
done their worst upon him. Malevolence could have but 
one step further — having made him dead, it could wish 
him to remain dead and so it placed a seal upon the 
tomb. The seal of Caesar upon the tomb of death. 

Good fortune be thine. Vale. 

Written from the Antonian Tower, Jerusalem, in the 
eighteenth year of Tiberius CcBsar and the eighth year of 
Pontius Pilate, Governor of Syria. 




II 

THE RESURRECTION 

SergiuSf Centurion of the Ninth Legiouy to Marcus^ the 

Prefect, Greeting ; 

And now, Marcus, what shall I say? Out of the foolish, 
fond heart of nie, like the babblings of a child, I wrote 
unto thee by the Egyptian post of this Jew who had in- 
terested me. After all, it was but a passing fancy. I 
thought that I had done with him when I had done with 
writing to you, but by the gods, no ! If you could see 
me now, Marcus, you would know that I have lived ten 
thousand years since I wrote last. 

In what terms shall a man write down that he has 
looked upon the face of God and in what language trans- 
late the strange emotions that possess him ? I have seen 
a light that was not of the sun and yet was of a bright- 
ness surpassing the brightness of day upon the desert. I 
am confused and humbled. I have travelled far and seen 
much and upon all that I have seen it has been my habit 
to make reflection and converse regarding it, and if it 
seemed worth while, to make it the subject of conference 
with those more intelligent than myself. Things that 
seemed to me wonderful and passing knowledge I have 
come either to understand or to catalogue as occupying 
some fit and proper place in the vast unsearched areas of 
the cosmos beyond the power of man to know. 

But all mystery and all marvel is to-day as nothing. 
For, Marcus, I have looked upon the face of the In- 



e Centurion’s Story 


scrutable. My soul has been bathed in mystery, I have 
seen the spirit of the cosmos itself, or indeed I must say 
himself, for the spirit is a man, and the man is God. At 
least so it seems to me. But there has been none to teach 
me. If there be a school or cult that did forecast the 
mystery of last night, and indeed methinks I see signs 
that such there is, I am not yet admitted to their circles. 

Remember that I write thee wide-eyed ; that the lids 
have not fallen over these wondering orbs of mine since 
I looked into the face of the living Jew, who, three days 
before, I saw bound with the spell of death, wrapped in 
the cerements of the grave and as dead, I swear, Marcus, 
as any mummy in the pyramids that peep over thy shoul- 
der as thou readst what I write. You will not question 
that I am disturbed, but rather ask if I but interpret the 
facts aright ? Do I apprehend the phenomenon ? Have 
I seen what I think 1 saw, or do I but dream and totter 
into dotage ? * 

Let me then set down in order the events which have 
transpired in these three marvellous nights since last I 
wrote to you and you yourself shall judge. 

To begin with, we lifted the noble Jew down from the 
cross with the blood of a spear thrust that had searched 
his heart drying on the glistering white side of him. 
Evening was coming and there was a great hubbub and 
knocking about of old graybeards among the Jews. The 
morrow was one of their high days it seemed, and it 
would be an unclean thing for the dead to hang upon 
the cross over this day, and so they were for hustling 
them into graves at once. Off they bundled to Pilate, 
which was agreeable enough to me, for I am always glad 
to be rid of such a business. To save time and vent my 



lesurrection 


27 


spite upon certain curiosity seekers, I turned some score 
of them to digging graves in front of the crosses. They 
howled and protested, but the stout spat of the flat of the 
spear with an occasional prod with the point of it kept 
them sweating at their work. 

Before we were finished, back came a servant of that 
sharp dog Pilate to know of me if the Jew were really 
dead. The old fox it seems has done nothing but think 
of this young prophet since the trial and his mind was 
sticking at some talk of women that the man was a god 
and could not die. It was this superstition that brought 
the message from Pilate’s wife I told you of, and made 
him wish to save the Jew, if such might be ; but Pilate 
is an obstinate dog and once he has chosen a course he 
will walk in it to the turn of the road. Since he had 
delivered the man up to death, he would have no half- 
way measures ; he would have him so dead that if he 
come back it will be like a ghost, for Pilate is a crass ras- 
cal and knows that ghosts are harmful only in dreams. 

What, is he dead yet?” said the officer of Pilate, a 
Phrygian whom I have always despised. “ He is still 
dead,” I answered. The fellow looked mystified. May 
the divine Tiberius forgive me this jest at the fears of one 
of his worthy procurators. For, as you shall see, Pilate's 
haunting, suspicious fear was not that we had killed him, 
for he knew I would see well to that, but that he should 
remain dead when once he was slain. What a foolish 
fear ! what an idle superstition ! What a power in life 
this Jew must have been that he could haunt with fears 
when he was dead those who hated him and torture them 
with horrid suspense lest he break the seal of death and 
move again among the people or cast a spell so strong 



/ 



-enturionTstory 

that thrones would crumble and empires fall away. 
However, the thrust of my keen wit broke its point upon 
the thick skull of the Phrygian and the Procurator knows 
not that I did jest with his fears. The Phrygian, how- 
ever, knows death as well as another, for murder is one- 
half his trade, I know, and he looked beyond me to the 
grave-flesh upon the cross and knew it for what it was. 

Soon the Jews were hustling back with the order from 
Pilate to bury the dead, but one of my graves was 
doomed to emptiness unless I knock the bothersome 
Annas on the head and tumble him into it, and right 
well I had a mind to do it. For with those who came 
from Pilate was a rich Jew named Joseph, who seemed 
to be of the party of the Galileans to which this Jesus 
belonged. Anyway, he had a scroll from Pilate com- 
manding me to give him the body of Jesus to be laid in 
a newly hewn tomb in his garden on the western slopes 
of Olivet. The Phrygian was come back also with 
Pilate’s signet ring and the command of the Procurator 
to see the body sealed within the tomb and mount guard 
upon it for three full days. It was about the eleventh 
hour and the long march around the city and down the 
dry bed of a spring brook till we found the way across 
from the temple and leading up the sides of Olivet to the 
garden, made it near sunset when the tomb was closed 
and sealed. 

It was not an imposing funeral cortege. My half 
dozen men muttering over the dusty way, four or five 
stout fishermen of Galilee who bore the dead, this Joseph 
of the garden, and the handful of women who talked in 
low tones and wailed in high ones, and as we climbed 
the hill were saying how often the Jew himself had come 




over this pathway with his disciples to find repose at 
night in this very garden of Joseph where now they made 
his tomb. 

We laid the body in the inner crypt and after I had 
examined carefully the outer chamber, that it was all 
hewn from solid rock, my stout fellows rolled the heavy 
stone in its well-proportioned groove to the door, dropped 
it into the niche and across the stone I stretched a purple 
cord that spoke of the imperial dignities, and upon either 
end of the cord smeared the wax and made the imprint 
of Pilate’s signet ring. I bade the soldiers turn their 
faces from me while I myself did the foolish thing, for I 
knew the grinning rascals mocked me, especially that 
black-browed Stephen whose own spear had pierced the 
prophet’s heart. Too often he had given the death 
thrust not to know when it was well done, and here, 
while the very heavens mocked and while the deep, 
breaking sobs of women chanted a dirge of death, we 
were making confession of a procurator’s shameful fear. 
Do I err, Marcus, when I set you this down in such pain- 
ful detail ? I trow not ; for those trivialities, impressed 
upon me then because of their shameful uselessness, now 
burn into my memory. 

I remained about the garden until the watch had been 
changed and saw all disposed for the night, then made 
the best of my way down the darkened sides of the valley 
and up by the Pool of the Angel to the temple mound 
and thence to the tower where, weary as I was, I 
could not refrain from writing you of the death of the 
Jew. 

It was a strange thing that on the morrow the grove 
and the garden cast a spell over me. I could not wait 


t- 


30 


leT^nturion s Story 




for the guard to report but myself was there and saw the 
watch changed. All was as we had left it. 

The next day was the Jewish Sabbath and again I 
found myself in the garden when the morning watch was 
changed. All’s well,” they reported. “Hath noth- 
ing chanced? ” “ No,” they answered, stolidly. I was 

foolish, Marcus. I was provoked with them for their in- 
difference. Why had not something chanced ? “Have 
you seen nought ? ” I asked. “ No,” they said, “ except 
some women who come and sit under yonder tree and 
weep and wail through the night.” “ Where are they ? ” 
I asked. “ I will talk to them.” “ They are gone,” they 
answered. “There are two of them. They come at 
night. They have been here these two nights now.” 
“Do you see no men about?” I queried. “No,” 
they answered, “ none come.” 

I came in with the men who had been relieved but in 
my own mind I made appointment to keep the watch that 
last night myself, and it is well, too, Marcus, that I did, 
for what wonder was wrought in yonder garden with its 
gnarled olive-trees, with its feebly dripping fountains 
and with its few and scraggly flowers I cannot of a verity 
say, but something wonderful, which I now try to describe 
to thee, my thoughtful friend, while yet it seems to make 
its largest impression on my mind. 

I reached the garden in the evening, just at sunset. 
The rays stealing in through an opening in the trees fell 
full upon the hard surface of the stony crypt and were 
given back in a gleam of gold. At the moment I thought 
it was curious, but now it seems to me prophetic as I re- 
call what golden light I saw streaming from that crypt ere 
yet another day had dawned. I looked to the purple 





e nesurrectioii 


31 


cord and to the seals of Pilate upon it. They were in- 
tact. 

Some foolish weakness made me lean an ear against the 
stone and listen. All was still. My senses detected 
nothing but the chill of the rock and the heavy odour of 
the pounds upon pounds of spices in which the Jews 
swathe the bodies of their respected dead. And then, 
inquiring where the women were wont to appear, I started 
that way. It was up the hill a stone’s cast, and along 
beneath the brow of it, in another garden, like the last 
but more secluded. Here, beneath heavy shade, one 
might pass the night in this hospitable atmosphere with 
no more than a cloak between his body and the ground 
and the fold of a tunic between him and the stars. There 
was but one woman. Have you ever observed, Marcus, 
that the sound of one woman weeping, somehow, gives 
the impression that there are two ? So my soldiers had 
been fooled. Here this one was, shrouded in the dusk. 

I spoke to her and she ceased her sobbing at once and 
responded to my address in startled tones. ‘*Whydo 
you weep ? ” I asked. << Was he your brother ? ” No,” 
she answered, ‘*no, but he was like a brother unto me 
and something more. I loved him, but as one would 
love God, whom indeed we had thought he was.” 

This was said in tones of the most complete dejection ^ 
and melting sadness that ever I had listened to. With ^ 
weeping through the night, the woman’s soul had become 
so tuned to grief, that her sobs were a melting symphony 
of sorrow, like to which mine ears had never listened be- 
fore. 

<< You were a disciple of his ? ” I asked. 

‘‘ Ten thousand demons held me in a bitter thrall,” she 






32 


le Centurion’s Story 



answered. He set me free and then he made me quit of 
every grief till his death at the hands of wicked, shameful 
men came, striking a dirge of sorrow from every chord of 
this sad heart of mine.” Why do you weep here? ” I 
asked. Because the soldiers hinder me,” she said. 
** To-morrow that foolish word of the priests that he will 
rise again will be made false. The guard will be removed 
and we may complete the preparation of his dear body 
for its last rest.” 

The woman talked like a poet, but she sorrowed like a 
woman and I had respect enough for her grief to leave her 
and go on my way to the brow of the hill where for hours 
I walked amid the stars and reflected. My mind went 
back over all the past. I remembered how when a boy, 
I floated my puny ships upon the sea at Puteoli while I 
cast the enlarging eye of wonder upon the sails that came 
over the horizon. As I saw them come, my childish soul 
questioned what lay beyond. I have travelled far since 
then. Gaul and Britain and the forests of the Danube 
have been familiar ground to me. My heels have 
brushed the dew from the grasses in the far North beyond 
the great Scythian Sea. They have stirred the dust of 
the great African desert and once you and I waded knee- 
deep into the yellow tide of the Euphrates. Yes, I have 
travelled far and yet, wide-eyed, with childish wonder in 
my mind, I still marvel that the curve of the horizon 
balks me. What is behind it ? Ah, that is the question. 

I saw the Jew die two yesterdays agone. Did he die or 
did only the soul of him sink behind the horizon, as in 
my boyhood days I saw the proud galley sink behind the 
curve at sunset into other seas than mine own eyes looked 
upon. I have tried to frame my thoughts at times in the 


school of Epicurus to say that death is death and let it go 
at that, but Epicurus takes no account of the curve of the 
horizon. To say the ship ceases to be when it drops 
over the watery hill is not reasonable and to say that our 
friends cease to be when they drop out of sight of our 
childish, wondering eyes is not an answer that has com- 
mended itself to my mind for long at a time. I have 
held, rather, with Pythagoras that the soul that is dead 
soars like the Phoenix. 

While I wandered thus in the bright moonlight, I came 
upon a man, youthful but of a solid figure. As he stood, 
his face uplifted where the rays of the moon fell full upon 
it, I saw that it was the face of an artist. There was 
genius in his countenance. But across it too came a look 
of pain and trouble and sadness not native to his 
features ; a certain horrible shadow of suffering that had 
been flung upon it suddenly. I thought I recognized him 
for that friend of the crucified Jew who had gone with 
him to the house of Annas. Involuntarily, I stopped 
without disturbing him. He stood a dozen paces from 
me on a broad, flat rock. His hand was on a wall, 
his eyes wandered off, off over the gardens, along the 
slopes until they rested upon that spot where the iron 
heels of my soldiers clanked to and fro on the rocky way 
and kept watch over a tomb whose solid rock was not 
more cold than the flesh of that which lay therein. 

As he turned the light played yet more freely upon his 
face and I saw in those features beside the shadow of suf- 
fering the growing fire of yearning, and while Flooked I 
thought the yearning became a hope. 

I spoke to him. He started, and then returned my salu- 
tation with that strange dignity which now and then I 


34 


The Centurion’s Story 






have met among the more kingly of these Jews. You 
know how mean and churlish are they with a Roman. 
This man seemed to recognize me. 

‘‘Centurion,” he said, “you saw him die. What 
think you ? Will he live again ? ” 

“ As all men live,” I answered, “ beyond the horizon ; 
not here and not now.” 

And then the young man drew close to me ; so close 
that I caught the smell of the tarred sheepskin fisher’s 
coat with which he fought the chill of the midnight air. 

“ Centurion,” he said, “ I have seen this Jesus whom 
you slew ” — I started at the word — “ by order of Pilate, 
at the instance of the Jews, touch the hand of a girl that 
was cold in death and she arose and asked for food. I 
have seen him touch the bier of a man being borne to the 
grave and call upon him to rise and the man stood up 
and questioned whither they were taking him. Nay, 
more ; I have stood before a rock-hewn tomb over the 
brow of this hill, scarce a dozen furlongs, and heard his 
voice wake one who for four days had slumbered in the 
cloying embrace of death, and the dead, swathed round 
about with grave-clothes, strode forth instinct with quiver- 
ing life. How say you then that he shall only live as all 
men live again, amid the unsubstanced shades of the 
under world? ” 

The young man cherished a great hope. I approached 
nearer to him. I felt a sympathy for this dark-eyed youth. 
Somehow, he was like mine own son, that pretty boy Lu- 
cillus, whom thou dost so well remember, whose voice 
was like the chords of a deep-toned lyre and whose face 
was like a vision of mankind in its morning. My heart 
was touched with sympathy for the youth and for the 

gi i9 » VX , T ., 




le nesurrection 


great hope in his breast. I myself was wandering on 
the mountainside in the raw night air because the spell 
of the Galilean lingering after death had caught upon my 
nerves, and yet I knew the man was dead. I knew the 
tomb was cold and silent and tenantless save by wither- 
ing flesh. I was but waiting for the rising sun to pro- 
claim the folly of Pilate’s precautions, so 1 sought to 
rescue the young man from his delusions. 

** Young man,” I said, among the Piets, far to the 
north in Britain, I have seen the bard, chanting the bat- 
tle-songs of a nation, call back to life the dead warrior by 
the very fervour of his patriotic ecstasies. But the man 
had never died. The bard only called him back from 
the slower reaches of the dark river’s flow before the 
swifter tides had gripped his soul. Yet the cry went out 
that the seer had raised the dead. In Egypt I have seen 
a conjuring priest seem to give back the dead to life. 
Once, by the Euphrates, I saw it again. Yet it was not 
what it seemed but instead a mere necromancy. Given 
any man who has power to wake the multitudes to en- 
thusiastic devotion by the magic of his spell, and he 
will have art enough to earn a reputation as one who can 
call back the dead to life. But let me tell yon, while I 
have travelled far, I have never yet seen the prophet or 
magician who could put one single, living spasm in that 
heart through which a Roman spear has passed.” 

The young man looked at me soberly and weighed my 
words. He marked them and gave them credence, and 
yet, as his mind ran over those thoughts of which he had 
spoken to me, said solemnly : 

But these of which I speak were no necromancy.” 

I still felt my sympathy growing. He was so modest 





Centurion’s Story 


and so serious. I dropped my hand upon a rose. I 
snapped it off and held it before him. While he looked, 
I dismantled it, petal by petal, the while he watched. 

Look,” I said, when nothing remained. A moment 
before, a beautiful rose, its fragrance floating on the 
breeze, now its petals are borne upon the air to wither 
and be lost. It is gone. It will never be again. There 
will be other roses, but never that rose. So, your prophet 
is gone. There will be other prophets, but never that 
prophet again. Only in that great beyond of which we 
have spoken, our shades living on, there, it may be in a 
voiceless existence, his spirit may mingle with our own 
and we three, by such means as spirits use, may com- 
mune upon the nature of human existence.” 

The young man watched the breeze take up the rose 
petals one by one and bear them away, and then with a 
heavy sigh and a grave manner, as of one whose thoughts 
were far too deep for words, he turned and groped his 
way into the path that led down the mountainside to 
Jerusalem. 

How long I stood lost in reverie I cannot tell, but by 
something I was recalled to myself and my surroundings. 
My first thought was that the wind had freshened. The 
whole mountainside seemed a-quiver. There was a 
rustle in every branch and bush and flower and petal and 
blade of grass. The very cells and tissues of my body 
had caught the thrill of something wonderful ; of some 
rare potentiality that was cosmic in its measure. My 
mind was filled with a strange uplift and feeling as of a 
new world about to be born out of the past and all the 
future swung around me in a mighty circle. 

In the east from where I stood, upon the brow of the 




le Resurrection 


37 


hill, I caught the first gleam of the morning star. I 
listened for the wailing of the woman beneath the tree. 
It had stopped. Worn out with her long vigil, sobbing, she 
had taken her way homeward. As my eyes wandered 
over the hill to the garden and the tomb, I started, invol- 
untarily, for a strange glow was there. At first, I thought 
the soldiers had kindled a fire, for the night was chill, 
and it was the glow of firelight on the branches that I 
saw, but then I saw there was no flickering, as of firelight, 
but rather a kind of golden cloud that hung over the spot 
like a halo, and strange perfumes, such as travellers ob- 
serve in the Valley of Perfumes in Araby, were float- 
ing on the breeze. I breathed deep of them. My 
feet took wings as I hurried to the garden. Mysterious 
thoughts possessed me. Wonderful emotions stirred my 
soul. I ran faster and knew not why I ran. I seemed 
obeying some primary instinct of my nature and leaped 
from rock to rock, or clambered over walls, or tore 
through hedges of roses, or pushed under trees. Noth- 
ing could be permitted to impede my progress. Half- 
way there, I met a soldier, fleeing, wild-eyed. I drew 
my sword. The man cowered at my knee. He was 
speechless. Some vague horror possessed him. He cast 
terrible looks backward and muttered incoherent sounds. 
I could have slain him but that some wide spirit of peace 
seemed brooding over all. There was a spirit of life in 
the air and I could not kill. I sheathed my sword. The 
man rose up and cast one lingering, terrified look back- 
ward and stumbled on. He was fleeing in the opposite 
direction from the Antonian tower. Panic had pos- 
sessed his soul. He knew not whither he was going nor 
cared. 


-H 






le cJenturion s Story* 

In a dozen paces, I came face to face with another 
soldier, fleeing like the first. It was Stephen, the hard- 
featured Galician who plunged the spear in the side 
of the Jew upon the cross. I seized him by the throat 
and forced him to his knees. “ Coward,” I said, <‘what 
have you seen ? ” ** Seen ? ” he muttered. Seen? ” 

he gasped. We have seen nothing, but a golden cloud 
that hangs above the tomb and there is life within the 
tomb. We have heard a rustling within and the voices 
of men.” ** Is the seal broken ? ” I asked, and flung him 
from me and rushed to the tomb. 

But when I reached the area of the golden cloud, I 
halted as quickly as I had started. There came to me a 
feeling that I trod on holy ground, that I was about to 
see that which it was not permitted a man to see. With 
slow and faltering steps, I approached the tomb. There 
was music in the air. I could not tell you whence it 
came, but now, as before I had caught that strange rust- 
ling sound on the whole hillside, there was a sound of 
celestial harmonies. I looked about me. My senses 
were abnormally quickened. Nothing escaped me. Far 
down below, I heard the passage of another frightened 
soldier as, with his arms, he clambered, clanking, over 
the wall, but all around me, the hillside was caught 
in the spell of music. Every branch and blade of grass 
and shivering petal of a flower was now vibrating with 
this strange, invisible, indescribable harmony that struck 
a rhythm from the heart-strings of my soul. 

I approached the tomb and laid my hand upon the 
stone. It had been rolled back. It was no longer cold, 
but warm. I swear it was warm to the touch. My soul 
quaked within me, my heart stood still. 



lesurrection 


39 



If there is life within,” I said, << that life shall come 
forth.” 

The next instant, I was bathed in a flood of light that 
streamed from the opening portals. 

I looked ! 

And not only looked, but saw ; not only saw but con- 
templated, for one long, glorious, transcendent instant of 
time, and then I turned away and sank to the ground. 
My body was collapsed in utter weakness. 

What length of time I remained thus, inert, with 
closed eyes and ears, I know not, but when I opened my 
eyes, the golden cloud was gone. The music, too, was 
still, but for all that, the grove of the garden seemed 
thrilled with a presence that had not been before. The 
morning star was still shining, but the dawn hurried 
over the top of the hill, and I was aroused by the sensa- 
tion of an earthquake. Twice it seemed to me the 
ground under me shuddered and then lifted, as with some 
mighty convulsion of nature. When the vibrations had 
ceased, I opened my eyes and cast about me in wonder, 
as upon a new world. Down the mountainside I heard 
the talk of women and presently that woman whom I 
met the night before beneath the tree. I recognized her 
by the tones of her voice. She seemed surprised to find 
the stone rolled away. In a moment, she had stooped 
and peered in — then with a great melting sob hurried 
down the mountainside. That she saw me as she came 
near I am almost certain, but she was blind with weep- 
ing, and though she passed me by a foot, gave no sign. 
Other women came and stood a little way apart in a 
group. They looked upon the tomb, but seemed afraid 
to draw near and after conversing in low tones turned 







1,11 ■IPIBI w ^1 ^ I iTi 

’he Centurion’s Story 

about and went away. It was strange but I had no de- 
sire to enter the tomb. I had seen what I had seen and 
the memory of it was still thrilling me to the finger-tips 
with a sense of ineffable glory. 

I heard the sound of hurried footsteps and up the path 
to the garden came the dark-eyed youth whom I had 
met in the night upon the mountain, followed closely by 
a great, shaggy haired giant of a Galilean whom I had 
seen with the Jew at the time of his arrest — he who smote 
off the ear of Malchus — and again as a member of the 
burial party. The youth was fleeter of foot and reach- 
ing the tomb first, stooped and looked in, and after him 
the larger man laboured heavily up the way. His was 
an impetuous soul, and he flung himself immediately 
into the chamber. 

A sudden horrid suspicion entered my mind. Shall I 
ever forget the shock of it — the suspicion that after all I 
had been dreaming, or at most walking in my sleep. 
While I slept or dreamed my soldiers had been fright- 
ened away and the body stolen. My ecstasy was not 
real. My emotions were begotten of troubled slumber, 
and after all I was but a stupid dolt. The suspicion, 
while it lasted, gripped me sickeningly. For a moment 
my state of mind was pitiful. Then an aggressive spirit 
leaped up within me. I would see whether this were so, 
could be so, or not, and following them I, too, entered 
the tomb. 

The air was heavy with the odour of spices which had 
been wrapped about the body. These were heaped in a 
careless pile where they might have fallen from an 
upright figure as a shroud was unwrapped. Unwrapped, 
I say, Marcus. Note that. For here the theory of a 



desecrated tomb halted abruptly. What body thieves 
would pause to remove the shroud ? Would they not, 
fearful of discovery, snatch the corpse and make off with 
it swiftly in a frenzy of terror ? However it might be 
desirable to lighten the body of this round hundred 
pounds of spices. So my grave-robbing theory got upon 
its legs and limped on a few paces, only to receive its 
death-blow as I looked upon the shroud itself, composed 
of strips of linen cloth, and folded in a pile, I swear to 
you, Marcus, as a woman might have done it. What 
body of Galilean fishermen stealing the body of a dead 
comrade from under the guard of Csesar, and hurriedly 
casting off the weight of embalming materials, would have 
stopped to dress the crypt with folded linens like a fuller’s 
bench ? Would not rather the eager strength of ready 
fingers have torn these cloths from the body as it lay 
prostrate and have strewn them in dire confusion ? You 
shall judge if this ordered heap of linen did not prove 
that what possessed me was no vagary. 

But yet another piece of napery cried out to me, <‘The 
Jew is risen.” This was the head-tire which I had seen 
upon his brow the night of his arrest, a piece of finest 
silk with brightly-coloured border. In the house of 
Annas I saw him bestow it upon the younger of the two 
men now in the tomb like a keepsake. When we took > 
the body from the cross this same youth produced the 
head-tire and reverently bound it on the thorn-ridden 
brow. So it went into the tomb with him, and in 
truth, here it now lay neatly folded on the shelf of 
the crypt, its silken binding cord beside it. Since the 
world was fluid fire what grave-robber ever stopped 
to fold a head-tire ? Write that down on the first 


piece of papyrus at hand, Marcus, and send it to me by 
swiftest military post, or I shall hold that never it was 
done, and that in this folded head-tire is a voice that 
cries out like thunder that my senses were not deceived 
and my memory does not stumble on the way to perfect 
recollection. 

In truth, Marcus, all raillery forgot, what I saw con- 
firmed the memory of my glorious vision. 

The Jew was alive. His body thrilled again with 
life. His cold and pulseless corpse was not stolen from 
the tomb by the craven hearts of fear-stricken men, but 
he rose as men wake from slumber, and walked forth 
warm and glowing with the glister of a different exist- 
ence, for the glory of the Man, which mine eyes had seen 
for a moment, was the glory of God himself. The 
ordered linen cloths, the heaped up myrrh and aloes, the 
creased and folded head-dress all proclaimed that angels 
had come to serve him and for a moment this rock-hewn 
crypt had become the tiring room of the son of the Im- 
mortal. 

To set down what I saw in a single glance, to record 
what I felt in one uprising tide of conviction ere I had 
taken a second breath of the heavy air of the tomb has 
required, lo, these many words ; but in my next glance I 
surveyed these close friends of the man. Was there a 
plot to steal his body, and they did not know? Were 
women hurrying to the place the instant the guard was 
relieved, with spices and perfumes ? All the while the 
body was speeding off Galileeward through some un- 
frequented cleft of the northern hills ? Ask thy- 
self, Marcus, as I have done, can it be so con- 
sidered ? 


The older of the two men stood, combing his gnarled 
beard with his fingers, a look of mingled doubt, misgiv- 
ing and hope upon his face. The younger man’s 
features wore a glow of joy and he spoke to the other ex- 
citedly in that harsh Galilean jargon, pointing to the 
napkin. I asked in the Greek tongue what he said, and 
he answered in the same: ‘‘The master’s head-tire. 
You see how the two ends cross over and under the third 
as it lies. It was his custom. He has been in this 
tomb alive.” 

There was an exultant sob in the throat of the young 
man. His eyes were flashing brightness. The older 
man’s face bore a puzzled, thoughtful expression. It 
seemed as though his had been the greater and more un- 
comforted sadness, and now hope took slower hold upon 
his soul, yet with each passing moment, I perceived a 
growing animation. 

We walked out of the heavy air. All the hill was 
sparkling with sunshine and the roofs of the city were 
agleam with it. The two men, in animated conversa- 
tion, after looking about them, hurried down the road to 
the city. 

I lingered. The garden had become very dear to me. 

My back was towards the empty tomb. I pondered it 
all, and oftenest my mind was at stand upon what the 
young man said about the folded napkin. How many, 
many times has my wife Afrania said : ‘‘ No, Lucillus 

is not within, but he has visited his chamber since with 
my own hands I dressed it this morning. I know, for 
he cannot go in nor go out, he cannot take up or lay 
down a mirror nor move a perfume jar upon the 
table that 1 do not know he has been there.” 




And so it seemed to me a thing most natural that 
this young intimate of Jesus should recognize in 
heaped up linens and folded head-tires the minister- 
ing living hand, the accustomed presence of his mas- 
ter, and say with solid assurance as I do now, He is 
alive. 

I know, dear Marcus, that what I write is a jungle of 
confusion ; yet I think there are no contradictions. I 
have communicated to you my state of mind, the prog- 
ress of my thoughts, and what I saw in the tomb when 1 
entered with the two men. Of all that happened I have 
carefully set down, even to the panicky cries of a flying 
soldier, and of all that I saw, except in that single ecstatic 
glance when, peering through the open door, in the 
streaming light of ineffable glory my eyes rested upon 
that which I have no words nor will to communicate to 
another, lest it be lost to me. 

I have not yet made report to Pilate. Already the 
story that the body was stolen is current in the streets. 
I passed the last watch of soldiers, crouching, terror- 
stricken, in the hall as I came here. They gazed at 
me out of fear-troubled eyes. They expect death itself 
for their cowardice. 

Before noon I must stand before Pilate and recount 
the events of the night. Should I falsely tell him that 
we were overpowered by a sudden rush of numbers and 
his body borne away by friends, he will believe me and 
dismiss me with a chiding. If I tell him truly, he will 
think I am lying, and fly into a rage, ordering me to 
Rome and to Caesar probably to await the executioner’s 
sword. 

Wherefore if this be my last letter to thee, good 



he Resurrection 


friend, be assured once more of your comrade’s good will 
and love. I know not what I face, I only know that all 
the old landmarks in life have changed for me since I 
have seen the grave give back the dead. If I live, life is 
a new thing to me. If not, it concerns me not greatly 
and I make no quarrel with my fate. May yours be 
happier. Vale. 

Written from the Antonian Tower ^ in the eighteenth 
year of Tiberius Ccesar and the eighth year of Pontius 
Pilate i Governor of Syria, 



i 

p 

p 


I 



I 


, t • 


t « 
t 


r 

s 

I 

\ 


f 

t 

► 








^v'lVSl' .' ’ . V-'P** 

“' • v.i: .•?», 


* * «: 






.1 I 


< I 


» . . ‘j 9 ■' 

’a^s 








I ■ 




.VV,',,''Vy, 


7 !!(• 




<4 


i I 


Tl 


f»' 


. ' » 



M'’ 


i 




>1. 


m 


iiiy 





W 

■ ' . r 

' $ . 

'• ■ »'Y V '• 

A'' '■! 

'.■<4^.- i . 

'■ ' f.‘’ ', , * >■ 

1 ' ■» » 

4 ' ^ 

4 . 1 

4 

■ 7 0 . 


1 

•’ > • 

.. 1 

1 

■ .-■,v,- 

^ 1 ’. 

v ■ ■ 

1 . 

> 


<y r- f' 


S' 




.T‘ 


j' t 


't. ^i-v,;.v,f'v* 




I? 








t < 


.'.f 


0T 


< 


i'} 


I, |V<\' . I 


'I ’A. 


Tl 


V j'.V 


I » 










w> 


Y 






' «* 




:^' ■\ 


i 


\ ' 




('ll) *,/ ■ > '/t < ' 1 1 ( 


> I* 


* 1 








"* /•* * ^ 
ir.- < • • * 


vv ■ ■ ’ V I 

• .' .'tf >. 




> t 


I I 


,1 V •>» ‘ /• i 


1 . 




4* » * 

• •'. ^-'rt 


' -I*. A' '»•/» 

V,lj' 'r''' 


w 




, i\M 


i .* 


7' ^1 




• I 








It*. I 


fff 


j’i ' ^ '4'- ' ./i’ '^'47 ' 

-H--: - 


l‘'J ' ' f 



/ • * •' ''4 

< •• • *-v; 

' f, •. *» * • 


I. . 



1^ 












1 • :*ji: V ^ .1 '•*. . ’ /.‘.vV^ ' i' f'V^: Ji 

*•- i* , ■- i >. » ■ . » » ,/ •«. /■<\<\^- i-j 1 

-v V, •'• . 


'/>" •: V. V 






>1^ 






) f 

























WAR IT 1910 




1 



* ‘ 




» 


Vi 



1 ^ 

im 


I - > 



4 

I • 



i. 


» 




I 


« 




. k 


« 

« • 


* 


* 

f 


* 




I 


I 





\ f 





ft 


* 


< 


« 






X 


>' "■ . V - 


r 


« > 







# 


V 


a 


I 





t 


I 


a<; 

t 



i 




a 


< 


» 


^.4 


V 


• ^ 


% 






vf. 




i 


V'*T • 

- i ■ 


.■ « 


1 


( 







